Engineering Manager - OS and Kernel

The role

The Robot Software team is responsible for the software that runs on our internal fleet of vehicles to enable autonomous driving and collect data for training new driving models. As the Engineering Manager, you will lead a motivated and talented team of engineers to deliver a reliable, stable and flexible software stack to support on-road experimentation by our model developers and scientists. Your work will enable these teams to iterate quickly and gather the data they need to improve our autonomous driving capabilities and support new product features, which is critical to the success of Wayve’s mission.

The OS & Kernel team within Robot Software are the curators of Wayve's bespoke Linux distribution, which is installed across our ever-expanding development fleet. The team works closely with various groups across Wayve, including other parts of Robot Software, the hardware and supply chain teams, and our field engineering and reliability engineering teams. The team's responsibilities include developing and maintaining our Linux distribution using Yocto, creating and updating Linux kernel drivers for new hardware sensors and peripherals, and hardening our development fleet against all forms of cyber attack.

Key responsibilities:

• Lead a high performing team of software engineers, providing technical direction and working with the technical lead to break down organisational goals into clear objectives and milestones
• Own the maintenance and long term direction of the custom Linux distribution we deploy to our internal development fleet
• Own the technical roadmap for your team, working with internal stakeholders, customers and other engineering teams to align on priorities and delivery timelines
• Coordinate with our hardware, supply chain, onboard software and security teams, to ensure the right features and functionality are added to support their work
• Deliver rapid proof-of-concept builds to enable the hardware team to evaluate new sensors and components
• Empower your team to operate autonomously, ensuring they have the resources, skills and information they need in order to succeed
• Guide your team to develop fault-tolerant software solutions with comprehensive diagnostic tools, to enable any operational issues affecting our internal fleet to be rapidly identified, addressed and diagnosed
• Communicate with leadership and other stakeholders to manage expectations, remove roadblocks and overcome any issues affecting the delivery or team
• Support the development of your team members through guidance, mentorship and the ongoing provision of high quality feedback

About you

In order to set you up for success as an Engineering Manager at Wayve, we’re looking for the following skills and experience.

Essential

• Proven leadership and management experience in a software development team working with embedded systems
• Deep technical understanding of Linux kernel development - including kernel modules, device trees for ARM platforms, and board support packages — with the ability to guide and review such work
• Experience overseeing the creation and maintenance of Linux distributions using tools such as Yocto or Buildroot, ensuring scalable and maintainable system architectures
• Strong technical leadership across the team’s core technology stack - C (kernel and bootloader), C++ (onboard software), and Python (build and test systems) - with the ability to set standards and drive engineering excellence
• Proven experience leading technical initiatives or projects in a fast-paced software environment
• Demonstrated ability to build, manage and grow high-performing teams, owning the recruitment process and supporting career development
• Excellent communication skills and a track record of effective collaboration across teams and functions
• Strategic acumen and the ability to distill company objectives and customer requirements into a vision and technical roadmap for your team’s internal product
• A degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent professional experience

Desirable

• Experience working with edge AI platforms, like NVIDIA Jetson/Drive
• Experience with hardware schematics and board bring-up
• Experience with robotics, autonomous systems, or other real-world sensing applications
• Experience in developing automotive software, knowledge of DriveOS

This is a full-time role based in our office either in Sunnyvale or London. At Wayve we want the best of all worlds so we operate a hybrid working policy that combines time together in our offices and workshops to fuel innovation, culture, relationships and learning, and time spent working from home. We operate core working hours so you can determine the schedule that works best for you and your team.